


like a tiger (defying the laws of gravity)

by Fiachra



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Shazam! (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Daemons, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 01:08:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21262604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fiachra/pseuds/Fiachra
Summary: "Billy hated how he picked her up so gingerly, when in any other case he’d just pull her against his chest. He hated how holding his daemon, the most natural thing in the world, felt so clumsy and awkward with his new hands. He hated how he could feel Cassi’s heart racing through his fingers, how fragile she felt in his grip."Shazam! But they have daemons





	like a tiger (defying the laws of gravity)

**Author's Note:**

> Will I write a daemon AU for practically everything? Yes, yes I will.

Thad could remember settling like it was yesterday. Many things from that day stood out in memory with crystal clear clarity. The car trip, the wizard, the yelling, the collision, the cold seeping through the broken window.

But most of all he remembers Eurydice as they stood staring at Father’s body, his daemon’s fur coated with a layer of gold Dust like sinister dandruff, her presence showcasing his survival.

Thad remembers wanting Eurydice to become something small and soft, like when they had been thrown out of the Rock of Eternity, something to comfort him when Father and Sid sneered at him.

He remembers looking at her when she failed to become a mink like she always did when he needed soothing. She was standing still as a statue on long legs with black feathers and a face like the pterosaur in the book he’d gotten for Christmas.

Eurydice had settled as a marabou stork. The undertaker bird.

***

“Do you think this will work?”

“Yeah, I think it will.”

Cassi, short for Cassiopeia, fluttered her robin wings on Billy’s shoulder, briefly changing into a chameleon.

“_Relax_ Cass, it’ll work.” Billy murmured as the cop car pulled up, Cassi grumbling about it being a good thing he had enough confidence for both of them.

Despite her misgivings, they ran from the scene in triumph. Cassi leapt into the air letting lose an eagle shriek of success and Billy laughed with the shared delight of flight. Any day she could make him laugh was a good day, any occasion where they didn’t have to watch each other’s backs constantly a victory. It wasn’t like anyone else was going to do it for them.

***

Their new foster parents smiled warmly at them, their daemons straining to get a look at Cassi, who turned into a rat and hid in Billy’s hood, leaving her twitching nose and whiskers exposed.

Billy gave them a once over, scrutinising their daemons more closely. Watching daemons was a good life skill to have, but an essential one for a foster kid.

They saw nothing that set off alarm bells. The red warthog-like daemon (a red river hog, Victor said in the car when trying to coax some conversation out of him) greeted them in a soft, kind voice. Meanwhile, the small brown bird with the white underside and black bands around the neck and chest flew to the woman’s shoulder and let out a barrage of peeps that couldn’t have sounded threatening if it tried.

(Later, Billy would learn more about killdeers, and would laugh at the idea that Rosa and her daemon would ever harm her kids.)

***

Arriving at the house had been… a lot. Cassi, as an orange tabby, stuck to Billy’s heels like a second shadow. The bearded dragon on the back of the couch swivelled to face them, became a cockatoo and bobbed her head a few times before becoming a meercat and returning her attention to the game her boy, Eugene, was playing.

Cassi’s fur bristled when Darla launched herself at Billy, quivering in a way that suggested she was on the verge of becoming something large and intimidating. She settled for leaping into Billy’s arms once Darla released him.

“She’s pretty!” Darla squealed, and picked up her own squirming retriever puppy, who’s form flowed into a capuchin monkey to sit on her shoulder.

“This is Julius.” She said before bringing them over to show them the poster she’d made.

“She doesn’t seem too bad,” Cassi whispered.

“You’re just vain,” Billy replied.

Cassi cocked her head in interest when Mary’s daemon fluttered his wings at them and became an African grey parrot to match him before flickering back to a cat.

The thing that struck him in this house of foster kids was that the daemons all looked _happy_. That wasn’t always the case. Billy had seen daemons that were lethargic or in ill-shape, with glazed over eyes or dull colours. There were others that never took on forms that couldn’t be bested easily in a fight, or ones who stayed small or inconspicuous. And then there were ones that had settled far too early and clearly in traumatic circumstances.

But all the daemons here, from the praying mantis currently swaying on Eugene’s head to the magnificent rock python draped around Pedro’s shoulders, looked content and healthy.

This observation was particularly exemplified by their new roommate. The tiny fennec fox with fur the colour of sand and the biggest ears Billy had ever seen was practically vibrating with energy.

The fox stayed silent at Freddy’s ankles until Freddy said he was kidding for the second time and started sniggering.

“Don’t listen to Freddy, I’m the real brains around here, I’m Felix” the fox said, the pitch of his voice making Billy realise he wasn’t a girl as he’d assumed. Freddy made a half-hearted attempt to swipe at his daemon with his crutch, which Felix sidestepped with ease.

Cassi jumped down from Billy’s arms and allowed Felix sniff her, Billy watching warily.

“I’m Cassiopeia.” She said softly, so the boys could only just about hear her.

“That’s a really nice name,” Freddy said, and Billy was surprised to see he had been watching the interchange with as much attention as Billy had.

“Thanks, so is Felix.”

Freddy shrugged noncommittedly, as Cassi retreated to Billy’s shoulder in the form of an aye-aye.

“Oh, you’re not settled yet!”

Billy tensed. When the topic of settling came up at his age, it could go in an all manner of ways. In Billy’s experience, it usually led to teasing.

Felix gave Freddy a loaded look. “Sorry, we didn’t mean to offend, boundaries are cool and all.”

“For what it’s worth,” Freddy continued from where Felix left off when nothing was forthcoming from Billy, “I think it’s cool. We settled a few months ago, and while fennec foxes are _awesome_, did you know they can go their whole lives without drinking? He misses flying sometimes.”

Felix nodded and Billy felt Cassi relax, both through their bond and from the way her grip on his hat loosened ever so slightly.

“The two of you don’t have to talk so much you know.”

***

“This place isn’t so bad.” Cassi whispered late that night, tucked under his arm as a cat while Freddy snored in the bunk beneath them.

Billy made a sceptical noise, and Cassi batted his nose with her paw.

“Think about it.” She said.

***

Billy had been in his fair share of fights before, but none of them had led to becoming a superhero.

Cassi had whimpered when the Breyers had first arrived on the scene, flinched when Felix yelped as the bighorn sheep kicked him away from Freddy.

Then Billy had joined the fray, and Cassi had leapt on the Jack Russel daemon with a snarl, shaking him like a chew toy in her wolf jaws.

(Billy could taste the echo of daemon blood staining her teeth.)

Then they were running (again) and found themselves face to face with a goddamn _wizard_, of all things, complete with a staff, robes, a majestic looking grey owl daemon and cryptic words.

When Billy found himself in his weird new body for one horrible moment he thought something had happened to Cassi, but she was there, as always, hackles raised and teeth minutely bared, her fearsome image marred somewhat by the fear she was sending his way, and the desperate way she asked if he was alright.

The wizard’s owl flew down to speak to her in whispers, and Cassi shrank into a ferret as he crumbled to Dust along with his human. Her coat had a reddish-gold sheen that hadn’t been there before.

Billy hated how he picked her up so gingerly, when in any other case he’d just pull her against his chest. He hated how holding his daemon, the most natural thing in the world, felt so clumsy and awkward with his new hands. He hated how he could feel Cassi’s heart racing through his fingers, how fragile she felt in his grip.

“What’s happened to us?”

“I don’t know Cass.” He replied in a voice that wasn’t his own.

***

“All I have to do is press dial on this thing-“

Freddy pauses when Cassi leaps off Billy’s shoulder, changing into the orange tabby from the night before. Felix trots forward, and then looks to Freddy.

“It’s really you.”

“I _told_ you it was me.”

Despite the obvious, the most shocking revelation is right after discovering the super speed. Billy blinked in surprise when he found himself right next to the woman who’d been mugged (or hadn’t, as the case may be) and then realised Cassi was still with Freddy and Felix. And he didn’t feel the usual pain at being that far apart.

For a moment, he was gripped by icy terror, the woman’s voice fading into insignificance as his heart started beating so fast he was worried he’d pass out there and then, superpowers or not.

But he could still feel Cassi in his mind, still felt as connected as always as she raced over to press against his leg. This didn’t really resemble the horror teachers had described when intercision came up in history.

“Your bond is stretched!” Freddy exclaimed, with seemingly little notice of the panic Billy had been in, “Like Wonder Woman!”

(The way Felix nuzzled at Cassi said otherwise though, as did Freddy’s question of whether he was alright as they lay in their bunks later, eyes wide open and staring at nothing in the dark.)

***

The following days pass in a blur, what with sneaking out of school and power testing and falling into some sort of a friendship with Freddy despite his best intentions. Billy’s ongoing goal to find his mother took a secondary position, and for the first time ever was almost an afterthought.

Almost.

“What should Red Cyclone’s daemon be?”

“Hmm?” Billy looked up from the homework he was attempting to do. Freddy was flicking through a well-worn animal encyclopaedia.

“You’re not settled yet, so should Cassi take one form when you’re the other guy, at least until you settle?”

Freddy wasn’t pitying when he said that, and Billy was sure he was one of the few people he’s discussed this with that didn’t ramble on about either how daemon settling was different for everyone or look concerned when Cassi shifted forms, which was great.

“Maybe? At least she looks a little different when, you know.”

The red-gold tint faded from Cassi whenever he powered down, and while it wouldn’t be a very robust disguise if someone looked closely or if a daemon she knew interacted with her, at least it was some cover.

“Birds of prey are cool, Superman has that caracara, or a mammal, Wilson’s study of 1986 showed that people are drawn to and trust people more if they have charismatic species, but something small would be easy to transport, but with stretching that’s not that much of an issue-“

Billy found himself grinning at Freddy’s enthusiastic rambling, and found the knot that had been in his chest for as long as he could remember loosen ever so slightly. Cassi gave him the _look_ she’d been giving him whenever this happened, and he rolled his eyes at her.

“How about this?” She said to the room at large, and that was also new, she never used to talk to other people if she could help it, but now she would quietly converse with everyone in the household. Billy knew this was related to the _look_.

“Nah, that’s too dorky to be a superhero’s daemon.”

“Hey!”

Billy laughed at the look of mock outrage on Freddy’s face, and playfully tossed a pillow in his direction when the two identical fennec fox daemons chased each other around the room.

***

Smashing the screen in the elevator to silence the obnoxious video doesn’t hurt like it should have. Like it would if he was still weak.

(Weak like his brother, weak like his brother's soul, the red deer doe who'd screamed as she'd fallen into Dust when Sid sailed out the window and far further than their bond could ever reach.)

Eurydice ruffles her feathers, refolding her wings delicately but deliberately.

“What?”

She looks at Thaddeus, purple eyes going dark for split second, but says nothing.

She doesn’t speak much these days.

***

“Shouldn’t we be somewhere?”

Cassi was hovering as a red and gold hummingbird in front of his face, tearing his attention away from the couple he’d just taken a selfie with.

“It’s only school, it’s fine.”

Cassi was about to retort, he could feel it, when he ended up racing across the road in his first proper daring rescue. Sir Zaps-A-Lot, one. Villainous snow plough, nil.

If ever there was a time when he thought he would be found out, it was now.

Socrates, Mary’s daemon, paused in his affectionate preening of Mary’s hair and stared at Cassi, still hovering over his shoulder in a blur of red and gold. He then turned his head away in an exaggerated act of indifference, and Billy could only be thankful for the unspoken code daemons seemed to have to keep some things unsaid.

When he walked away, Cassi hovered in front of his face, flapping her wings even harder than she had to, making an angry buzzing sound. Billy could feel her disapproval radiating off her.

“What?”

She said nothing, and Billy, on realising she was concealing the reason for her annoyance from him so he’d remember it himself, could feel his own temper rise.

“Listen, we’ll be fine, we’ll head back soon. And if this is over what I said to Mary, I totally stand by it.”

Cassi whizzed around his head in a blur of frustration, much like the hummingbird in that Disney movie he’d seen once, then soared upwards as a peregrine falcon. Billy watched her go, feeling her fuming despite the now familiar stretch of their bond, and wracked his brains for what he’d forgotten.

It was only when Freddy appeared, seething with anger and Felix bristling, that he remembered.

***

Despite being more accustomed to it than most, seeing the man in a long leather jacket stalk towards him with no apparent daemon at his side, and no sign of the cases that protected small fragile ones, was creepy. He wasn’t made any less creepy by the glowing purple eye. Or that when the tall bird landed next to him her eyes shone with the same purple sheen.

Ignoring the stares of the people around them, Cassi shifted into a harpy eagle, drawing the stork’s eye.

It was a good thing they had this stretching ability, as the shock of being lifted so quickly into the air probably would have killed Billy on the spot. Nevertheless, he heard a shriek of distress and felt a flash of pain that suggested the other daemon has attacked Cassi.

Being so far away from her and not being able to help was worse than he imagined the pain of separating would be.

“You grovel like a child.” Sivana hissed.

“That’s because I am one!”

To his credit, Sivana didn’t stay surprised for long. “Your daemon makes sense now,” he said more to himself than Billy before throwing him towards the ground.

***

Billy had the _idea_ of what flying was like from Cassi. Every child did.

_Actually _flying was all that and more, he just wished he wasn’t being pursued by a maniac with a magic eye so he and Cassi could enjoy it properly.

***

Cassi scrambled to his side as he screamed the word in the mall, and together they slipped into the crowd, Cassi shaking and bleeding from a wound on her side. She turned into a giant millipede and slipped into his pocket without a word.

Eurydice and Sivana stood side by side, together making the connection between the child on the screen and the one yelling for his friend.

Birds can’t exactly smile, but Eurydice gave the equivalent to Sivana, along with a generous side of malice.

Felix pressed his body against the lockers, snarling as Sivana lifted Freddy to eye-level.

“You’re going to tell me where he is.”

“And if I don’t?” Freddy countered, with a lot more bravery than he was feeling.

Sivana smiled thinly, before dropping Freddy unceremoniously. Freddy hissed as his bad leg flared in pain, and Felix jumped into his arms. Eurydice stalked closer, spreading her wings, which from his position on the floor seemed to block out everything, enclosing him in despair and darkness. She couldn’t actually make it seem like each breath was a labour, and that he was being suffocated by fear, could she?

Quick as a striking snake, Sivana grabbed Felix by the scruff of his neck and held him high. He looked terribly small, despite his valiant snarling and squirming. Freddy curled in on himself, he was pretty sure he was crying, but everything seemed dull and far away. Even Felix’s struggles were slowing.

Sivana gave him one last vicious shake, and tossed him to Eurydice, who pinned him to the ground with one scaled foot.

“Now,” Sivana said pleasantly, as if he hadn’t just violated one of the oldest taboos humans had, “I was asking where the Champion is.”

***

Maybe in another version of this meeting, Billy wouldn’t have seen the truth the moment he saw the daemon on his mother’s shoulder.

In the days and weeks afterward, he can’t help but go over that moment again and again in what must surely count as masochism at this stage. Afterall, it was difficult to not be hit with the crushing realisation that he was intentionally abandoned when his mother’s soul, the mom he’d spent years searching for, was in the shape of a cuckoo.

***

Billy can’t remember feeling terror quite like this.

He had felt fear for himself of course, but never for other people, and never this intense.

The other side of being a hero, of dealing with villains, hadn’t seemed real until this moment. This moment being his drowning.

_I’m going to die_

Billy can feel Cassi’s struggles as if they were his own, just as she can feel an icy iron band squeezing her chest as Sivana forces his face into the icy water over and over again. She’s switching forms as fast as she can, flickering from wolf to racoon to raven to scorpion to rattlesnake to alligator faster and more desperately as Billy fails to transform even once.

_I’m sorry, I’m sorry_

He’s sorry for them all, his daemon, his new family, for dragging them into this. His mother.

Then the pressure on his head eases, and he’s able to take a gasping breath of freezing, painful, _glorious_ air.

_Get up. Get up._

The voice in his head is Cassi, or it could be Freddy, he’s not sure.

There’s a roar as he says the word, and the stork daemon is thrown back as Cassi stands, shaking static from her striped fur.

Billy gives her a far briefer hug than he would like, and they stalk towards Sivana, growls rumbling in Cassi’s throat, eyes sparking with fury.

***

It turns out fennec foxes _can _fly.

You just have to open your heart to them first.

***

Billy launches himself skywards, racing after Sivana.

Cassi leaps, a tiger suspended against the night sky for a second before her form morphs into a peregrine falcon. She’s racing alongside Billy in no time at all.

_What about the others?_

He gets the impression of Theaphania, Pedro’s python, coiled and ready to strike (was she always _that_ massive?) while Felix stands back to back with Eugene’s Cleo, now a rhinoceros.

_They’re fine_

They hover in the air across from Sivana. Cassi is a hummingbird again, and Billy’s is pretty sure her anger is keeping her aloft more than her wings.

The stork daemon is waiting alongside Sivana, her heavy wingbeats silent from this distance.

“Let’s end this,” Cassi says, and together they shoot forward, golden eagle colliding with stork at the same instance their humans do.

*** 

“Where’s Envy? Where’s ugly Envy?”

Sivana flinches, but otherwise nothing changes. Cassi notices something, feathers on her neck rising in alarm.

Billy heeds her unspoken warning just in time as the stork gives an enraged shriek, and the sin of Envy bursts from her chest.

Sivana flails and falls. His daemon, eyes no longer that unnatural shade of purple, lets loose an agonised scream, plunging after him. Without the Sins, their bond had its limits again.

***

She huddled next to Sivana, silent and powerless, as the crowd below them cheered. Cassi, a tiger again, pressed against his side and he stroked her head, trying to repress a shudder. How did he stand putting one of those _things_ in her? Imagining it was bad enough.

When the crowd started to disperse, Cassi shifted into a small animal, like a weird looking weasel, and climbed onto his shoulder.

“Let’s go home.”

Billy wasn’t going to argue with that.

(Later, he would realise she said _home_. Not _the_ home. Home.)

***

It wasn’t until later, after Mary had somehow managed to spin a convincing lie as to where they all were that didn’t involve superheroes, when Billy noticed.

More accurately, Freddy noticed first.

They were about to get into bed when it all hit them, the reality of what had happened, and they found themselves sitting side by side on the bottom bunk, not speaking but arms brushing, daemons curled on their laps.

(Later, Billy will marvel that he’s in the position for that to happen. For him to experience casual companionship with someone. It’s almost wilder than the superhero stuff. Almost.)

Felix had sat up suddenly, ears quivering, and Freddy slapped him on the arm.

“What was that for?” Billy said in confusion, the sting jolting him out of the memory of cold water, Cassi rapidly uncurling, fur bristling.

“Dude, haven’t you noticed?”

“Noticed what?”

Freddy stared very pointedly at Cassi, who blinked up at Billy. She was still the weird weasel thing. Which she had been since the carnival.

She sat up on her hind legs and pressed her front paws to his chest. Billy ran a finger down her back, now that he was focused he could feel a thrill in his veins not unlike the feeling when he summoned lightning from his fingertips.

“Is this it?”

She hopped up onto his shoulder and nuzzled his cheek.

“She’s a banded mongoose,” Freddy said, “in case you were wondering.”

Billy laughed, and tried to blink away the stinging in the back of his eyes. He barely noticed whatever he said to Freddy as he left the room, it was secondary to the feel of Cassi’s fur against his neck.

When he’d imagined this moment he had always imagined he’d be with his mom, and she would be so proud of him. He thought he’d be with his family.

Then Darla rushed into the room like a cheerful whirlwind, and threw herself into his arms, Julius flying circles as a blue morpho butterfly. Then there was Mary, and Pedro, and Eugene, and finally Victor and Rosa, who enfolded him in the warmest embrace he’d ever experienced and said he could decide on something fun for them to do together to celebrate.

And he was happy. For the first time in a long time this moment of happiness didn’t feel conditional, or lacking something. He just _was_.

***

“Is this okay? Do you like it?” Cassi whispered that night, tucked under his arm, Freddy and Felix snoring and snuffling below them.

“I love it Cass.”

“So this means we’re staying right?”

Billy snorted, grinning as her happiness and peace rose to meet and combine with his own, and hugged her closer.

They had finally found their way home.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this almost since I saw the movie, and just got sidetracked and busy and I finally decided it just had to be posted or it would never be posted at all. So I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Come say hi on Tumblr: @consultingzoologist


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